Monday July 9th, 2018

How to increase profits without raising prices? This question is asked by many owners of beauty salons. One solution is to implement a sales technique"additional sale" (otherwise: additional sale) . If everything is done correctly, you will receive not only an increase in the average bill, but also many satisfied and grateful customers.

An additional sale in marketing is an offer to the main service or purchase that carries value for the client and at the same time increases the average bill.

In fact, it is a working tool for business development. He helps:

• increase profitability (up to 20-30% or more);
• build long-term relationships with clients;
• improve the assortment portfolio;
• increase trust and loyalty to the salon.

Upselling to beauty salon clients is based on three key questions: what, how and when to sell? We will discuss them in this article.

What to sell?

Without a good foundation, any technique will be useless. Therefore, the sale of additional services begins with an assortment portfolio - a set of goods and services that are offered in a particular salon for a particular audience. And already on its basis, a scheme is signed: what and in what case to recommend to customers.

See how you can expand your offer, using the example of a women's haircut:

• Basic service:Women's haircut.
• Additionally:Hair styling, hair washing, stylist work.
• Related services: Head massage, hair reconstruction, Olaplex restoration procedures, coloring (including hypoallergenic paints), gray hair masking, etc.
• Analogues (in different price categories):Therapeutic thermal haircut (more expensive), simple length correction without styling (cheaper).
• Special offer:Keratin hair straightening using an innovative product.
• Complex VIP-program "Shiny and healthy hair":Haircut with hot scissors + wellness head massage + keratin straightening
• Sale of home care products: Shampoo, balm, hair masks selected by the master for the client (cosmetics of the same brands that are used in the salon).
• Parallel services: Pair session: hair coloring + manicure. Express program "Evening": hairstyle + make-up + manicure.

To compile an assortment portfolio, you will need:

• target audience research (to understand customer needs);
• analysis of competitors (to avoid their mistakes and find your USP - a unique selling proposition).

Read more about marketing research in the article " ».

But the bulk of the work is the systematization of goods and services, as well as setting up processes.

First, you need to track the consumption of goods and stock balances. Secondly, to analyze which services sell well together and offer them exactly. Thirdly, to control financial flows and analyze which goods and services bring maximum profit. Only then will it be possible to set up an effective system of up-selling and control the income received.

In a normal situation, this can be a huge job and take a lot of your time. But if you use a CRM system , all necessary processes are easily automated. You only need to upload data (on sales, products, services, prices, employees) and view ready-made reports generated automatically.

Knowing exactly what to offer customers, you can count on a stable growth of business indicators.

How to sell?

There are various upselling tools, namely:

• Cross-sell ("cross sale").To the main service, you offer related or related products. For example, after a manicure - high-quality nail care products at home or hand cream.
• Up-sell ("sale up").A more expensive analogue or alternative to what the client has already chosen. Not just a manicure, but a comprehensive SPA manicure with masks, massage and paraffin therapy.
• Down-sell ("sale down").A more affordable option that will keep the client and gain his trust. If gel extensions are too expensive for a client, you can offer her shellac as an alternative.

Knowing these terms is certainly useful. But it is unlikely that it will be useful if you simply convene employees and tell them: “Girls, now use Cross-sell and Up-sell with each client. And, look at the situation, sometimes I allow Down-sell.

Therefore, we have collected several “live” upselling techniques in a beauty salon that you can start using even tomorrow, adapting them to the characteristics of your establishment. Get creative, because every business is unique.

Many clients of a beauty salon subconsciously expect expert advice from the master. What shade of paint suits them, what shampoo is better to use, what cream to buy for a trip to the sea. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the professionalism of your employees and at the same time increase the average bill.

Example:

Did you like this shampoo? Do you feel how soft your hair has become?

Yes, especially the smell. How much does it cost?

There are different options, depending on the volume. If you want, after the haircut, the administrator will select a shampoo from the home care line for you.

Advice.Imagine that the master advised a certain remedy, the client intends to buy it .... and suddenly it turns out that it is over. Unpleasant, right? You not only lose money, but also spoil the mood of your guest. So keep a close eye on stock. If you already have , assign each product a "critical quantity" value and the program will tell you when it's time to restock.

Technique "We remember you"

The very “individual approach” that many declare, but not everyone really uses. Make an offer based on the preferences of the individual. Even if he does not agree to an additional purchase right now, he will appreciate your attention and care.

Example:- Natalya Sergeevna, you liked the massage last time. Will you be recorded today too? Yes? Great. Again on honey, or want to try something new? We just launched a new relaxation program ...

Advice.If your administrators do not have a unique photographic memory, maintain customer cards in CRM. In Beauty Pro, they store not only basic data (name, contacts, visit history), but also personal information: from marital status to skin type, coloring formulas and favorite brands. Just a couple of clicks - and customer data will be in full view.

Technique "For the result"

Customers don't care that you bought a super expensive vacuum roller massage machine. Theythey just want to solve their problems: lose weight, tighten their figure, get rid of wrinkles. What they value is focusing on the best result for them.

Example:

Hello! Do you do seaweed wraps?

Hello! Yes, sure. Are you interested in anti-cellulite effect?

Yes, I want to remove the hips.

Look, for the hips I can offer you the “Your Figure” program, it is now the leader in terms of efficiency. This includes algae wrapping, warming up in a phytosauna and hardware massage of the problem area. Only 10 sessions, and the feedback on the results is just wonderful. Will you try?

Advice.Remember that the goal is not to sell a service, but to make a person feel good. Don't promise 100% results if you can't guarantee it. Teach administrators to respect the client's decision and not to insist on refusal. But it is also important that your employees do not get lost in the conversation and competently offer additional services. Prepare information tables and an upsell script for them, where the benefits of complex programs and more expensive analogues will be described.

Technique "And we have a promotion today"

Far from new, but nonetheless an effective way to increase a check is to offer a discount for a limited time.

Example:

Are you happy with your new haircut?

Yes thank you.

Super! And today we have a discount on style gel, just for short haircuts. This is Italian professional cosmetics, with which you can do styling at home. Show?

Advice.Discounts are a powerful tool for upselling, but it is difficult to guess in advance whether a promotion will “shoot” or not. And here Beauty Pro comes to the rescue. Analyzing the results of certain promotions with the help of the program, you will eventually stop at the most effective ones, which not only bring new customers, but also bring maximum profit.

Bring a Friend Technique

A marketing technique that solves two problems at once: increase the average check of a particular client and attract a new one. How exactly? Offer him a gift certificate. This is especially true before the holidays.

Example:

Olga Alekseevna, Happy New Year! We have a gift for you, 20% discount for the next visit. We also have holiday certificates that you can give to friends and family.

And what are the certificates?

Here, look, there are different services and with different prices. You can give a specific program, for example, 2 hours of relaxing massage, or a certificate for a certain amount: then the person himself will choose what he wants.

Advice.Certificates can be of different types. To choose which ones will be the most effective in your salon, analyze the results of past sales and choose those offers that bring you the most profit. The Beauty Pro program automatically captures both the buyer of the gift and the one who used it, as well as data on the purchased goods or services.

Technique "It's time to upgrade"

If a person has not visited your salon for a long time, delicately remind about yourself. For optimal results, most services in the beauty industry are recommended to be repeated at regular intervals. Take advantage of this.

Example:

Irina Semyonovna?

Yes.

Hello. You are worried about the Beauty Center, you are our regular client. My name is Alina. Are you comfortable speaking?

Yes, what do you want?

Irina Semyonovna, you underwent laser hair removal with us in February 2018. The specialist recommended to repeat it in July. Let me sign you up at a convenient time for you?

Advice.Give the client the opportunity to feel like a VIP: he does not have to worry about anything, they have already taken care of him. It is important to do this unobtrusively and carefully. Use different reasons for reminding: an interesting promotion has started, you have new services, the client has money left in the bonus account, etc.

When to sell?

The right time is one of the most important factors that affect the success of upselling in a beauty salon. There are 4 points that are advantageous from a psychological point of view:

• during the recording, when the client is interested in what options would suit him best;
• during the procedure, when the client communicates with the master and is predisposed to advice and recommendations;
• immediately after the end of the procedure, before the payment itself;
• when the offer is timed to coincide with any occasion: the anniversary of the service in the salon, the client’s birthday, a calendar holiday, expanding the range of services, etc.

The more personalized your offer is, the more likely it is that the client will accept it and the upselling of services will take place. Therefore, it is worth keeping complete information about your guests in CRM: starting with the history of visits and dates of birth and ending with personal preferences.

In addition, we advise you to categorize clients: one-time, permanent, VIP, former clients, etc. Such segmentation will help you to make targeted offers for one or another part of the audience in order to achieve the maximum return.

Using information from the Beauty Pro system, you will be able to rank contacts by importance, make individual sales, and most importantly, form a permanent circle of quality customers.

Many directors sigh heavily when they are asked about the success of selling professional cosmetics in their beauty salon. And they begin to talk about the difficulties: about the fact that customers prefer to buy cosmetics in online stores, because they manage to save 20-40 hryvnias (about 1-2 dollars), and also about the fact that masters do not want to actively sell cosmetics anywhere, despite all efforts and systems of motivation.

It turns out that in the sale of cosmetics we often see more problems than opportunities. Today, of course, we will look at both of these aspects to learn how to seize opportunities and eliminate problems and increase the profit of a beauty salon through effective sales of professional cosmetics.

What we would like to focus your attention on is the differences between sales of professional cosmetics in a beauty salon and in an online store or a regular store. Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages, and your task is to correctly use the advantages of beauty salons, eliminating or leveling the disadvantages.

Pay attention to the retail zone, that is, to the place where the buyer directly gets acquainted with the presented goods. How is the retail area organized in your beauty salon? More than 90 percent of beauty salons cannot boast of “pluses” in this column. The organization of an attractive for buyers, noticeable sales area is something without which the sale of cosmetic products practically cannot exist.

In stores, the sales areas of professional cosmetics are decorated in most cases much better. As for online stores, they have their own virtual retail zone, but in the case of websites, navigation and convenient search are crucial. So, we draw conclusions: in the struggle for the buyer, we are working on a retail zone.

Do you think that your main "enemy" is online stores or shops? However, you need to fight not against them, but FOR your customers. You may be surprised to learn how small a percentage of your potential customers stores are able to poach.

Studies by professional companies show that only 10-15 percent of clients of beauty salons purchase professional cosmetics in stores. In other words, 85-90 percent of people who buy professional cosmetics in stores are not clients of beauty salons. These are people who visit beauty salons, cosmetology clinics or spa centers very rarely or do not do it at all. Accordingly, this is not your target audience.

The advantage of beauty salons over stores and online stores is that the masters who sell in the UK know their product better. These are not just sellers, these are experts who individually select a product, recommend the best remedy in a particular case, prescribe a certain drug, and do not sell it in the "shop" sense.

Low knowledge of the product is a significant disadvantage for sellers of online stores and regular professional cosmetics stores. Therefore, in the case of a purchase in a store, the client is faced with a high probability of making a mistake by choosing a product that does not fit. In the beauty salon, the client acquires cosmetics that are really suitable for him, which will help him solve his problems and achieve the desired result. So, you can see that in terms of the credibility of the seller and the benefits received by customers, beauty salons have a significant advantage over stores.

Conclusion:

we focus on these advantages and work to improve the skills of our masters of sales techniques. Where to get selected information on this topic? The course "Sales system in beauty salons" of the service will allow you to get answers that will allow you to significantly increase the efficiency of sales, and this applies not only to cosmetics, but, above all, to the main services of your company, including,.

Focus on strong arguments in favor of buying cosmetics in a beauty salon. Comparing further sales in a beauty salon and in a store, we see that in the case of a salon, the argumentation of the purchase also wins. High reputation of the seller, trust in him, safety of choice, efficiency in meeting the need.

For a purchase in an online store or a regular store, the main argument is the price. We remind you that we are talking about clients of beauty salons, and not about all buyers of professional cosmetics.

Properly motivate your staff. Choose a simple and effective scheme to motivate your employees. To make the motivation system truly effective, you can use the techniques that we consider in our website courses.

In stores, as well as online stores, there is a standard scheme where the seller is offered a certain salary plus a percentage of sales. Some distributors provide incentives to sellers to increase sales of the brands they represent.

Let's talk about numbers

How do wholesale prices differ from a beauty salon and a store/online store? The price of wholesale purchases in the UK depends on the ability of management to negotiate with distributors and on the size of the purchase. In stores, there are several options for solving this issue. The store can purchase products at a special price officially from distributors. As a rule, this is 5 percent higher than for beauty salons and 10 percent higher than the price of online stores. In another option, the store purchases products at a price similar to beauty salons. The third option is the store receives the goods from sub-dealers at a reduced price. And the fourth procurement option is gray import.

What is the markup in salons and stores? The margin of beauty salons averages from 60 to 100 percent. Margin of stores / online stores - from 30 to 100 percent.

After analyzing the above comparative characteristics of sales of professional cosmetics in beauty salons and stores, we see that salons have an advantage in many points, and where shortcomings are most often noted, there are opportunities and real tools for improvement.

P.S. NEW!

"My Beauty Salon" is a book about how to open a profitable beauty salon, attract customers and organize the work of staff. It is read in 16 countries of the world.

In the book 192 pages, clear and detailed tables, more than 20 tools, hard cover, convenient format. The author explains in detail what challenges every owner and manager of a beauty salon, cosmetology center and spa will have to cope with on the way to building a steadily growing business in the beauty industry. This book is a treasure trove of information and insight on all aspects of starting and running a beauty business.

About the author. Natalia Goncharenko is the founder of the International Club of Beauty Industry Business Owners and the Beauty Salon Boss Business School. Twice Winner of the Stella International Beauty Awards: 1st place in the category "Best Educational Center in the Beauty Industry - 2017", and "Best Business Coach - 2018". Author of two books on creating and developing a business in the beauty industry and health: The ideal director of a beauty salon (2015) and My beauty salon (2018).

I have watched more than once how sane, successful people who have businesses in other industries changed instantly when they opened a beauty salon. There they ruled, here they ruled. There they had a plan, a budget, KPIs, regular management - here there was no trace of such an approach, instead they were constantly putting out fires.

In another industry, they thought about the product - here about the design of the room. There they had at least some standards - here are the excuses “Well, how can I get the administrator to do this ?!” There was at least some kind of automation - there is a paper journal of records, verbal orders (I told her!), 5 phones and a lot of daily paper reports from administrators. There was a structure and responsibilities - there are endless conversations and listening to claims against everything and everyone, including yourself.

“There is no desire to come to your own salon!” - the owner of one enterprise complained to me ...

Buy a book by Natalia Goncharenko "MY BEAUTY SALON": description, content, reviews and 1 chapter

And we wish you inspiration and desire to work and become better every day!

"How to sell to every client of a beauty salon"

“How to sell home care and value-added services to high-profile, moody, aggressive, and silent beauty salon clients using 3 simple tricks.”

• Do your customers buy the cosmetics you offer online?
• Are your customers not buying because they already have a whole box of cosmetics at home?
• Do your customers get scared when you start offering something to them?
• Do your clients shut down when talking about buying extra care?
• Or even worse, the client buys and comes back with claims that the remedy does not help, and then it becomes even harder to sell?

Employees of several Moscow business and premium salons constantly faced such problems until they learned how to prevent such cases with the help of a powerful sales technique that consists of simple, step-by-step employee actions.

The masters, administrators and managers of the salon are not at all to blame for the fact that they are taught to sell only in cosmetic companies with which the salon cooperates.

Here it is important to understand the most important thing - the goals of the sales department of a cosmetic company and the goals of a beauty salon are as far apart as Melbourne is from Moscow. Or the second training option is “taxi coaches” who teach you to sell everything in a row, whether the client needs it or not. And you are far from alone who are faced with such problems and not at all alone who receive a poor quality solution to such problems. After talking with employees of more than 70 salons, I identified the same problems, and the same attempts to solve these problems. Masters turn a blind eye to useless training with each unsuccessful attempt to sell additional funds, because. This is not their main form of income. But this does not solve the problem of decreasing trust and non-returning customers.

Thanks to the experience of managing the sales department not only in the field of beauty, but also in medium and large businesses, and having talked with employees of more than 70 salons, I managed to create a solution to this problem.

• Prescribe the correct, selling line of products and services of the salon.
• Divide clients according to their psycho-types, and apply a special form of communication for each type separately.
• Divide the process of communication with the client into stages and create a correct communication algorithm that creates trust at each stage of interaction with the client.
• Make a list of all the problems of the clients of the salon and the consequences of these problems affecting the life of the client.
• Learn the rules for effective communication.
• Learn the basics of communicating with clients. How the client thinks, how the client makes the decision.
• Apply value added model.

Some say that it is simply given to someone to sell, let them sell. Selling is not a gift, but a skill, just like riding a bike or skating, anyone can learn it. It's just that many had a long negative experience, due to the wrong approach to learning.

My name is Mikhail Vinnikov, I have been in sales for over 14 years, and I can say with confidence that a salesperson is a noble profession, a sincere salesman, not a taxi driver. I've gone through different sales schools over the past 14 years, and just like you, I can't stand peddling, flattery, and deceit. I say with full responsibility that selling without selling but feeling comfortable and getting constant pleasure from the process of communication is real!

Salon employees who completed the course increased their sales results by 20% in a month.

But more importantly, they began to enjoy communicating with customers and understanding this process from the inside. The massage master, who has been working in the salon for several years and has never sold any home care products, having understood the principles of individual communication and received specific tools, began to sell additional care.

By purchasing the course, you get:

• 9 lessons lasting 2 hours.
• Step-by-step algorithm of the wizard's work with a new and regular client (pdf).
• Phrases and speech turns of communication with the client at each stage for the master (pdf).
• Step-by-step algorithm of the administrator's work when meeting a client (pdf)
• Step-by-step algorithm of the administrator's work when communicating by phone (pdf).
• Phrases and turns of speech when communicating with a client at a meeting and by phone for the administrator (pdf).
• Table for compiling an individual selling product line (pdf).
• Description of types of clients, methods and forms of creating trusting relationships and behavior with each type of client.
• Slides of the entire course for further use.
• 10% discount on my, any, next product (course, personal coaching, group coaching, training)

I'm sure it's real for you too!

Therefore, if the information received in the course is useless for you and you do not learn anything new for your work with clients, I will fully refund your money!

> Sales area

We don't often come across vendors who make recommendations to help beauty salons make more money. Today we are starting a series of master classes from one of the distributors of Israeli cosmetics, which occupies a significant place on the Russian market. In recent years, before our eyes, a lot of Israeli brands and companies came to the Russian market, and in a variety of price and product segments. And if there are already obvious leaders from Israel in the professional market for body care products, then the market for professional hair care is just being formed; today's salon business master class is conducted by one of the leaders in this area.

The reception area is the most economically vulnerable, because it takes up a lot of space, but gives little money. The sale of related products in the reception area in relation to the sale of salon services for many beauty salons is almost zero. Why is this happening and what should be done? I have been distributing cosmetic brands for 14 years. When meeting with colleagues in Europe and America, I am amazed that there retail sales in a beauty salon account for an average of 50-60 percent of the total turnover of the salon. Of course, we have individual examples where retail sales revenue sometimes even exceeds salon services revenue, but these are the rarest cases. Among those beauty salons that buy our products, there are also leaders who have good sales figures for home use cosmetics. For example, the salon "French Yard", which won a trip to Israel in one of our promotions. But in general, in Russia, the level of retail sales rarely exceeds 10 percent of turnover: this is a meager amount, which in the meantime can be increased.

To begin with, it is customary to introduce yourself. My name is Oleg Kartamyshev, I am the head of the Egomania Trading House company, which supplies hair cosmetics, but not paints, styling and other products for use in the workplace, but high-quality related products for retail sales in beauty salons - goods that, in general, are absent as a class, which largely determines the low sales in the reception area. Because only those products that meet the needs of customers sell well. In fact, we have just a niche product, but a little later you will understand how much more a beauty salon can earn if it pays more attention to retail sales. And for many beauty businesses, this can be a serious help in the development and achievement of high economic performance.

HOW WE SELL PRODUCTS AT THE RECEPTION OF THE BEAUTY SALON

Let's look at a few basic messages regarding the correct and rational use of the reception area in a beauty salon. Retail sales in the salon are divided into two main channels:

Sale of supporting drugs recommended by a beautician or stylist when performing the main procedure for which a person came to the salon: the purchase occurs almost automatically. This type of selling is called "consulting selling"; it is akin to how we buy a mobile phone or a vacuum cleaner on the recommendation of experts.

Sale of related products. Many people think that shop windows in the reception area are the same as shop windows in a supermarket: the fate of the so-called spontaneous purchases, that is, the client of a beauty salon "saw - wanted - bought." Hence the low sales results. In fact, these are the same consulting sales, only here the administrator serves as the main link and it is he who must skillfully convince a person of the need to purchase a particular product.

WHERE AND WHAT WE SELL IN THE BEAUTY SALON

There are places for organizing retail sales in almost all beauty salons, but at the same time, the shelves are littered with jewelry and other haberdashery items that are not sold much during normal times. It is clear that on the eve of the New Year, you can put up Christmas decorations for sale, while decorating your establishment, and earn extra money.

Quality products for hair and body care at home.

Cosmetic retail products "for pleasure" that do not require a selection for the condition of the skin or hair, suitable for everyone.

Gifts in high-quality packaging, as the client has little time to travel to shopping centers in search of the required gift.

Travel kits, since many visitors to beauty salons often travel.

It should be especially noted that when selling various haberdashery (jewelry, gloves, scarves, bags), you do not create an addictive effect in the client, as happens with cosmetic products.

After all, it is enough for a person to find his fragrance or cream once - and he will buy it constantly. It is also worth recalling the “lipstick effect”, when in difficult, crisis times, customers stop spending money on large and expensive things, but they continue to buy cosmetics very willingly. Give them this chance - offer a decent cosmetic range, and you will definitely be rewarded with additional purchases.

ECONOMY OF SALES

I will give a small mathematical example based on my brand Egomania. The average monthly sale of one salon is 15 cans of Egomania Retail. With an average purchase price of one thousand rubles per unit of production, the total earnings will be 15 thousand rubles per month, and 180 thousand rubles per year. It seems to be a small amount of money, but today there is none at all, and the reception area simply "eats" a share of the profits received by other departments of the salon.

At the same time, the area occupied by our assortment is less than one square meter. I also want to note that among our partners there are salons that sell more than 100 units per month and make a turnover of more than 100 thousand rubles per month, that is, about 1.2 million rubles, or about 40 thousand dollars, per year per square meter of rented area . Have you met a retail business with such a turnover? Q: How much do you pay for renting one square meter per year? I hope that it is obviously less than the given amounts, that is, this conditional meter from unprofitable yesterday becomes profitable today!

For example, let's compare (based on the results of 2013):

In stores of the Magnit drogerie format, the revenue per square meter reached about two and a half thousand dollars a year.

One of the main competitors in the drogerie format, the Rainbow Smile network, which operates mainly in large cities, has this figure reaching six thousand dollars.

In Azbuka Vkusa grocery supermarkets, this figure is $25,500.

In the stores of the Auchan network, the mentioned figure is 18 thousand dollars.

When we compare the results, we come to a mind-blowing conclusion: with the right organization of retail sales in the reception area, a beauty salon has the opportunity to surpass the revenue per square meter achieved by such monsters of the retail market as supermarket chains and drogerie. That is why I urge all beauty salon managers: "Increase retail sales and increase the average bill!"

WHY RETAIL SALES SHARE IS THE KEY TO STABILITY

One of the main differences between cash flow and retail sales is the lower risk of loss during staff rotation. It's no secret that an employee, leaving the salon, in most cases takes with him the lion's share of customers. According to statistics, for each departed employee, on average, a third of customers leave. That is, the salon business is vulnerable to staff rotation.

Retail sales are quite another matter. If all business processes are rebuilt in a beauty salon (work with a supplier, assortment, regular customers, logistics, marketing support), then they are the “property” of the salon and cannot be destroyed by the dismissal of one employee, even if very valuable. In other words, with the rotation of personnel, you can lose part of the revenue from salon services, but the turnover from retail sales will remain almost unchanged. Which makes it more valuable to the salon business owner. Do you want stability, do you want to insure yourself against losses in case of dismissal of key specialists? Grow your share of retail sales.

HOW OPPORTUNITIES ARE LOST

I will not fail to recall the main problem of the supplier: this is the task of reaching out to the decision maker. Usually it all ends with a person picking up the phone and using one of the reasons for refusal: “We don’t need anything”, “We work for ... (the name of some transnational brand is called)”, “The director is not in place”. These people do not understand and do not want to think that the expansion of the range of additional products automatically leads to an increase in sales. Fire unnecessary and unnecessary people, save on the payroll! By the way, here I can’t resist and tell you about the sore, at least a little and not the topic of our today’s conversation. Well, there can't be art director and/or PR director positions in the staff list of one salon, since they simply have nothing to do on the scale of this salon! Have you asked yourself the question: what do such people do, besides drinking liters of coffee and tea with various interlocutors?

All these duties can and must be performed by one person - the managing owner of the company. It is he who is interested in the profitability of the enterprise and is called upon to make timely management decisions. Fortunately, lately I have come across more and more cases when CEOs and owners post their contact phone number or e-mail on the site, which significantly speeds up the process of discussion and decision-making.

THE ROLE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE BEAUTY SALON

Now let's try to create an average portrait of an administrator who should serve as the main link in retail sales: look at how often people applying for this position change jobs and how much money they ask for. I almost always select employees for my company myself, so I constantly monitor resumes related to cosmetics. The situation on the labor market is simply overheated, potential employees demand some unrealistic income, by and large offering nothing in return. So, the army of administrators of beauty salons looking for work is the most numerous. Moreover, former salespeople, and former secretaries, and former computer operators want to become administrators, that is, people who do not even know the basics of this profession at all. Now no one teaches administrators, there is no secondary vocational education, although earlier even a retailer was specially trained. Therefore, in most cases, a young woman is hired, who does not have a special education and considers that her main task is to keep a log of clients and meet them in the salon. However, although these are important, they are still secondary functions. The main task is to SELL something to the client, except for the service for which he came to the salon, and thereby increase the average bill. Many owners, trying to achieve a solution to this problem, often change staff, but this does not lead to a fundamental improvement in the situation. After all, a dismissed employee still finds new jobs and often sells himself even more expensive. I agree, let them earn a lot, but they EARN, and do not receive. To do this, you need to introduce a system of motivation based on the results of retail sales and constantly train administrators.

HOW TO MOTIVATE STAFF

It is impossible not to touch upon the issue of rewarding staff for the achieved sales results. It is very important because:

Gives an opportunity to increase the turnover and profit of the salon.

Provides an opportunity to reduce the level of the existing base salary.

It makes it possible to realistically, on the basis of the received figures, evaluate the quality of work of each employee based on the results of sales.

That is why the employee's income should consist of two parts: the base salary and the motivational part in the form of a percentage of the amount of goods sold. Base salary - payment for what an employee must do daily, according to his job responsibilities (appearance, courtesy with customers, documentation, maintaining order in the salon). Percentage of the amount of goods sold: how much you sold, how much you received. I would recommend a rough 50/50 ratio so that the employee cannot afford to ignore any of them.

BEWARE OF "VARANGIANS" IN TRAINING EMPLOYEES

Another significant phenomenon worthy of separate discussion. The owners of beauty salons, realizing that an untrained employee is a threat to the entire beauty business, begin to implement the process of training the company's staff. At the same time, a strategic mistake is often made when they invite a “multi-discipline sales coach”. Don't make the mistake of inviting "general" trainers, because you can't sell milk under the same rules as professional cosmetics. General trainers sell only themselves and the information they have, and very often not their own, obtained from personal experience, but book: they do not have products for which they are responsible and which need to be sold.

Even a relatively “related” coach who organizes the opening of a beauty salon, who has successfully arranged the launch of a “beautiful” business and has established its work, will not be able to teach your staff to sell. Only highly specialized specialists in their fields are needed. After all, when your ear hurts, you don't go to the surgeon, do you? So why, in the case we are discussing, do you consider it right to invite a specialist who yesterday advised an agricultural enterprise or the administration of any of the regions of our vast Motherland? Once I invited a "free" coach for cooperation, whose most important client was one regional administration. I never received anything new and applicable in my company, but every week they brought me colorful reports and diagrams, many of which I later found in the public domain on the Internet.

Invite specialized trainers, even better - a representative of a distributor who, like no one else, is interested in selling their cosmetic products, which means increasing your profits. Require product training from the supplier: let the manager assigned to your beauty salon constantly communicate with your employees, transferring knowledge about the product and sales mechanics to them. All participants in the process will benefit from this.

THE CLIENT, HIS MOTIVATIONS AND MOTIVATION

In the first two parts of our master class, we talked about the main mistakes made by beauty salon managers when organizing retail sales at the reception, and about the role, positive and negative, that beauty salon staff can play in increasing sales turnover. Now I will tell you how to encourage customers to buy, as well as what and how you can demand from a cosmetics supplier.

Always be aware

How to learn about the most important new products without traveling to international conferences and not following the news from the websites of leading cosmetic brands every day? Exhibitors of Cosmo Expo know the answer, they know where to publish their information and announcements of educational events.

How to increase sales of professional cosmetics

Alexander Khodakov

Any supplier of professional cosmetics is interested in expanding the number of beauty salons switching to his cosmetic line. To do this, sales managers are hired, money is spent on their trainings, on exhibitions, on advertising, free training seminars are held - alas, all these traditional methods have recently begun to slip, because competition between suppliers of salon cosmetics has reached a boiling point. The choice of salon cosmetics is not just great - it is excessive for the domestic market of salon services. Selling professional cosmetics has become extremely difficult. Even just to get into a beauty salon with samples and brochures, a traveling salesman has to make great efforts, exhibitions are becoming more expensive, and the return on them has noticeably decreased, reaching out to beauty salon owners and cosmetologists through trade magazines is also becoming more expensive, and the return not great.

Have new, modern ways of stimulating sales of professional cosmetics been born? Have new technologies emerged that make it easier to connect the manager of a professional cosmetics company with potential consumers? Have new advertising channels for professional cosmetics emerged? Yes, the beauty industry market is constantly evolving, and some professional cosmetics suppliers are coming up with new methods to achieve results. No one seeks to reveal professional secrets, so I will not name all the new “tricks”, but I will reveal some of them.

Indirect sales of professional cosmetics

This method of increasing sales of professional cosmetics and equipment for beauty salons cannot be called too new - five years ago, SPORTMEDIMPORT, VIP CLINIC, ALFA SPA, several other major players in the beauty industry market formed consulting divisions within themselves, the task of which was to help beginners create beauty salons. Now, at least a dozen companies have such departments - after all, even for a pittance, providing services for the design of a salon business, you can, as a matter of course, complete a new beauty salon with your equipment and your salon cosmetics. Of course, you can’t hide the sewing in a bag - thinking newcomers to the salon business understand that when ordering the creation of a turnkey salon from suppliers, they will receive a frankly biased choice of equipment and cosmetics. But not everyone has figured it out and oriented yet, while the “indirect sales” method is still working, bringing a sales increase to companies of 10% or more.

Those suppliers who have not yet established their own consulting department have begun to approach independent consulting groups involved in the creation of turnkey beauty salons and spas in the hope that they will recommend their equipment and cosmetic lines when completing new beauty salons. By my own example, I can say that there are several such appeals to us every month. I do not consider it shameful to listen to such proposals - after all, the head is not the House of Soviets, you do not always have time to get acquainted with new products. So you can miss something really worthwhile, and cosmetic exhibitions are not the best place to delve into: too noisy, troublesome and chaotic. After that, we really start working with some of the suppliers - but on one condition that their line of salon equipment or professional cosmetics is not only good-looking, but also adequately presented not only in booklets, but also on the Internet. Otherwise, we get into a stupid situation - our consulting group recommends something, and our clients - future owners of beauty salons who have chosen us as consultants, cannot clearly get acquainted with the merits of their future purchase, and believe that we recommend something counterfeit, made in Odessa on Malaya Arnautskaya. But remember Kisa Vorobyaninov from 12 chairs, who dyed his hair with TITANIC paint! So here - there is nothing intelligible about professional cosmetics on the Internet, which means that you immediately get the impression that you should not take it seriously.

How to set up networks on the web

"Catch a fish - big and small!" - the wolf said, lowering his tail into the hole. His fate was unenviable. Fished in the wrong place. Of course, consumers cannot be caught in this way. Surprisingly, very few suppliers of professional cosmetics post information about their products on the Internet. Most often you see beautiful sites, the creation of which has spent a lot of money. And for the sake of which, in fact, potential consumers come to the site - there is no clear, intelligible information. The second option is to provide necessary but insufficient information. That is too short. The third option - on the contrary, strikes a flurry of texts and pictures, and alas - the texts are rewritten from annotations to cosmetics or equipment, apparently in a bad translation from a foreign language, from which little is clear. It is easy to get lost in such wilds, and a potential consumer ... is lost. There is a simple human desire to close the site, and then, as in an Odessa joke, to tell the authors “go to the market, buy a rooster there and ... brains for it.” Forgive me for the quote, you can’t throw words out of it.

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers

We help some of the suppliers to consolidate their positions on the Internet if we see that they do not have employees with extensive experience in Internet promotion - preparing information, search engine optimization, identifying sites with a target audience where it would make sense to look for owners of beauty salons ( present in the future) and cosmetologists. Do you know how many of these are on the Internet? At least 250,000 people a month visit our salon-themed websites alone. And five years ago there were only 75,000. That's how the Internet is growing for finding professional cosmetics and salon equipment. In fact, there are even more Internet users among beauty industry specialists. More than 35 thousand (five years ago there were 10 thousand!) subscribers of the Cosmo Expo electronic magazine - every week they receive the next issue of this magazine to their email address (subscription is free). Another five thousand subscribers of the free electronic magazine "Cosmetologist's Bulletin". A few years ago, an Internet exhibition of cosmetics and equipment for beauty salons appeared, where 24 hours a day and 365 days a year you can find the contacts of all suppliers, and dozens of them have built their pavilions. All these are modern methods of contact with consumers. The main value is the availability of sales managers even outside of business hours (and who among them will refuse a business call to the consumer even after hours, if they are all on interest). So, using modern methods, some suppliers beat others.

In support of my words, I give data on the attendance of several sites with information for salon market specialists:

Salon sites:

№	address	Name	Attendance (per month)
1	www.fabrikabiz.ru	Business Factory	65 000
2		cosmetic exhibition	50 000
3	www.newsalon.ru	Salon turnkey	42 500
4	www.salon-expert.ru	Salon Expert	13 000
5	www.cosmonews.ru	Cosmetics news	8 000
6	www.spa-expert.ru	SPA Expert	7 000
7	www.startbiz.ru	How to start your business	6 000
8	www.pro-parikmahera.ru	Hair Salon Online	5 000
9	www.pro-cosmetology.ru	About the beautician	5 000
10	www.studybiz.ru	Learn Business!	5 000
11	www.beauty-face.ru	Facial rejuvenation	4 000
12	www.prettyface.ru	Facial care	4 000
13	www.salonnews.ru	salon news	4 000
14	www.gotospa.ru	Let's go to the spa!	3 000
15	www.body-shape.ru	Body shaping	3 000
16	www.pretty-body.ru	Body care	3 000
17	www.beauty-town.ru	City of Beauty	3 000
18	www.massage-news.ru	All about massage	2 500
19	www.podarok-sertifikat.ru	Gift certificates	2 000
20	www.nensi.ru	Beauty Salons	1 500
21	www.spaprogram.ru	SPA programs	1 500
22	www.best-manicure.ru	All about manicure	1 000
23	www.pro-solarium.ru	About solariums	1 000
24	www.spa-certificat.ru	SPA certificates	1 000
25	www.best-pedicure.ru	All about pedicure	1 000
26	Newsletter magazine for executives	Salon business news from Cosmo Expo	35 000
27	Newsletter of the magazine for cosmetologists	News of the Beautician	5 000
		Total audience	over 250,000

All site statistics are open for viewing, see for yourself by clicking on the counters.

Internet promotion is actively used by the giants of the cosmetic market - Hitek, Martineks, Trium Trade, VIP CLINICS, WellnessProf, Syneron and some other notable players. But they are few. The rest prefer to spend money on training their sales managers, on exhibition stands, on glossy advertising in trade magazines, and on other increasingly less effective activities. Well, everyone chooses the path. And everyone deserves where he ended up as a result. Forgetting or not knowing the famous phrase of the Chinese sages - “if you don’t know where you want to go, why should you go there?”

Two sides of the barricade

Relations between suppliers of professional cosmetics and consumers of their products - beauty salons are increasingly reminiscent of war. Managers of suppliers are greeted with hostility in the salons. Yes, and they are becoming more obsessive in their proposals. “Sometimes five calls a day,” the director of one of the salons complained bitterly to me, “but how offended they are when you refuse to meet! And a week later they call again ... "Meanwhile, folk wisdom says:" a bad peace is better than a good war. Why not try to understand what beauty salons need, to help them with something. Make friends, join an alliance - some suppliers adhere to such a strategy.

The situation on the part of professional cosmetics suppliers

“We give samples, participate in presentations of our professional cosmetics in the beauty salons themselves, hand out posters – what else do they need?” And as soon as you ask the heads of beauty salons - what do you want to get from suppliers besides high-quality cosmetics, two or three points are called like this:

1. Human attitude - that is, not “call tomorrow”, but a quick response to questions asked.
2. Continuity of supply - not the phrase "the car is at customs, be patient a little more"
3. Real advertising support - coffee cups with a logo, posters and samplers will not replace serious promotions in conjunction with beauty salons.

One of the old finds of some professional cosmetics suppliers is advertising support for those beauty salons that have agreed to switch to their cosmetic line. There are several options here:

1. Advertising articles with a story about their professional cosmetics for end users, where are the coordinates of beauty salons, where this most professional cosmetics is present. At the same time, two thirds of each advertising article can be devoted to the advantages of the advertised professional cosmetics, and the remaining third to the coordinates of those beauty salons where it is used. Moreover, it is important not to push competing salons head-on, but to indicate the contacts of beauty salons in different parts of the city. This method continues to work, only the advertising medium will have to be changed - if earlier the supplier advertised in glossy magazines, now - on mass women's Internet sites: fashion, beauty, health - those three pillars that are in demand by the female audience. Why female? Yes, simply because women are still the main client for beauty salons. A phenomenon has long been noticed - you attract a woman to the salon, and she will bring her man there herself.
2. A simple solution is to promote not so much the cosmetic line itself as salon services using this cosmetic line, indicating the places where these services can be obtained. This approach has been used more than once in magazines, but for some reason no one has yet guessed to do it on the Internet. Among Moscow's more than 5,000 beauty salons, there will certainly be a certain percentage of those who will agree to this, especially if the advertising pressure on the Internet is very dense. Back in 2007, we did the first experiments with "advertising in a pot" - when a dozen beauty salons were "dumped" for a small amount, which was enough to place an advertising article on two dozen sites. A hundred clients obtained in this way were distributed among the members of the alliance, each receiving a dozen. With the ability to post to 150+ sites in bulk, at low rates, you can double your results. And we, the Salon Business Department, have such an opportunity, we have at our disposal one and a half hundred sites with a total traffic of more than 100 million per month. These are women's sites about beauty and health, and men's news and business. And the blogosphere and social networks. And press sites and so on. What is not the target audience of consumers?
3. The most amazing find shareware seminars. And Martinex, Christina Cosmetics and many other professional cosmetics suppliers have long understood and practiced sales through training. It is clear that a cosmetologist who has learned new techniques and technologies, and even received a coupon for the purchase of a trial batch of professional cosmetics, will become an adherent of this cosmetic line with a probability of up to 80%. And the latest feature is management seminars for the heads of beauty salons, where the compensation for the costs of the seminar itself is not only and not so much a set of cosmetics (the managers do not need it), but, for example, a coupon for a certain amount that the head of a beauty salon can spend on advertising. For example, we, the department of the salon business, issue such coupons, and the owners of beauty salons willingly go to such seminars, and then redeem their coupons for advertising on the Internet with us, realizing that this gives customers.

Salon business situation

Beauty salons and SPA centers need customers like air. Without advertising, they cannot be obtained, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find funds for advertising, and the return on advertising in the salon business is also deteriorating - the client at beauty salons has become “deaf-blind concrete”, and strives to skip advertising by ears and eyes. This means that there should be more of it, it should be diverse, and it should be waiting for a potential consumer of beauty salon services where he would still like to accept it. For example, when a woman comes to the conclusion that it is time for her to change her hairstyle, or smooth out the wrinkles on her face, or improve her figure, then most traditional advertising channels require a random coincidence - from the series “walked by, saw the sign of a beauty salon, went in.” Or - "I opened a glossy magazine, and there is exactly the right article, and even with an advertisement for a beauty salon." Another thing is the Internet: “I typed a search phrase, saw the title of the article, and in it the coordinates of the salon.” If a client of a beauty salon is looking for a solution to his problem on the Internet, then once on the salon’s website, it is likely that he will immediately call or make an appointment. Many beauty salons BEFORE the suppliers discovered this feature of the Internet, and are much better represented on the Internet - their sites are informative, visual, easy to use. But it's not enough to have your own website - salons today want to place their ads on mass "women's" sites, where their potential clients are concentrated. And there are not enough funds for this.

golden deal rule

It was in Chicago in the 20s that they lived according to the principle - "sold and run away." And modern management apologists argue that any deal should be mutually beneficial. Both the one who sells and the one who buys. A textbook example of the "golden deal" is when an unknown journalist bought an Underwood typewriter for $100, and printed a book on it, selling which he earned $100,000. And Underwood is well (his goods are bought), and the journalist is well. Why is it good for a typewriter manufacturer? Because as soon as he got rich, he bought himself a new, more expensive typewriter of the same Underwood brand (brought good luck!), And besides, he glorified the brand in his next book.

The mechanism of the proposed action described above for issuing coupons for advertising on the Internet to beauty salons, if after the seminar (or on their own) they switched to a new cosmetic line is simple and transparent. With our help, you can find beauty salons that want to switch to other salon cosmetics, having received advertising support in return. We can offer this on the Internet, since there are sites where many heads of beauty salons visit. We can organize seminars for leaders, bring them together.